Justin Sun just posted on X
Last night, my lawyers filed a motion with the court seeking sanctions against World Liberty Financial (@worldlibertyfi). The reason: months after I sued it, it disclosed that it was a citizen of the United Arab Emirates 🇦🇪.
For those who have just started following this dispute, a little background: I am one of World Liberty’s earliest and largest investors. In November 2024, I signed a token purchase agreement with World Liberty, agreeing to purchase $30 million worth of WLFI tokens. I later increased my total investment to $45 million.
In April of this year, I sued World Liberty, alleging that the company fraudulently induced me to invest and then unlawfully froze my tokens.
Under my token purchase agreement, I have the right to bring a lawsuit in either federal or state court in California.
I chose federal court.
Federal courts can hear cases like mine only when the parties are from different places. A foreign plaintiff like me can sue a U.S. defendant in federal court, but generally cannot sue a foreign defendant there. For this purpose, a company like World Liberty is considered to have the citizenship of each of its owners. So if even one owner is a foreign citizen, the company is considered foreign.
In other words, my case could be heard in federal court only if World Liberty and all of its owners were American.
Under federal court rules, World Liberty had to file a disclosure statement at the beginning of the case, listing each of its owners and their respective citizenships. World Liberty’s disclosure statement listed only one entity—World Liberty itself—and stated that its citizenship was Florida. Its lawyers also signed a statement claiming they knew of no one else who needed to be disclosed.
World Liberty then moved to compel arbitration, seeking to move my case out of open court and into a secret arbitration proceeding.
I opposed that motion. My lawyers spent several months and hundreds of thousands of dollars on it. At a hearing in August, the court said it did not believe all of my claims should be sent to arbitration. The court ruled that some of my claims would remain in open court and others would go to arbitration, and ordered the parties to work out an agreement specifying which claims would stay in court and which would go to arbitration.
Less than a week later, World Liberty suddenly “corrected” its disclosure statement. Where it had previously listed just one member in its ownership chain, it now listed 22, with citizenships in Florida, Delaware, Puerto Rico, and the United Arab Emirates.
World Liberty now says that the federal court has no jurisdiction over my case because it has UAE citizenship, meaning that there are foreign parties on both sides of the case.
The irony is obvious. World Liberty’s “Gold Paper” claims: “World Liberty Financial is not offshore by design.” It is “an American, tax-paying company committed to bringing DeFi back to its true home: the United States.” It promises to build a “U.S.-based decentralized platform,” founded on “American ideals of freedom, privacy, and the freedom to transact.” It calls private, peer-to-peer transactions “a core American value,” and boasts: “World Liberty Financial does not shy away from America—it embraces it, positioning the country to become the global crypto capital of the future.”
When selling tokens, World Liberty was a proud American company 🇺🇸. It only “discovered” its UAE 🇦🇪 roots when it needed a way to escape U.S. federal court.
Surely World Liberty has always known who its owners are. Yet its lawyers claim they only learned that the company had UAE citizenship after filing the original disclosure statement.
As my motion says, if that is true, then either World Liberty’s lawyers failed to conduct the required due diligence, or World Liberty was not honest with its own lawyers. We asked them what happened, and World Liberty refused to answer.
Token holders have a right to know whether the projects they invest in are telling the truth to the public and to the courts. I filed this motion to hold World Liberty and its lawyers accountable because I believe they submitted a misleading disclosure statement to the court. I also want to make sure that World Liberty bears the cost of its gamesmanship, not me.
After the federal court rules on this sanctions motion, I will refile my lawsuit against World Liberty in California state court.
I will continue fighting for the transparency this community deserves.
Last night, my lawyers filed a motion with the court seeking sanctions against World Liberty Financial (@worldlibertyfi). The reason: months after I sued it, it disclosed that it was a citizen of the United Arab Emirates 🇦🇪.
For those who have just started following this dispute, a little background: I am one of World Liberty’s earliest and largest investors. In November 2024, I signed a token purchase agreement with World Liberty, agreeing to purchase $30 million worth of WLFI tokens. I later increased my total investment to $45 million.
In April of this year, I sued World Liberty, alleging that the company fraudulently induced me to invest and then unlawfully froze my tokens.
Under my token purchase agreement, I have the right to bring a lawsuit in either federal or state court in California.
I chose federal court.
Federal courts can hear cases like mine only when the parties are from different places. A foreign plaintiff like me can sue a U.S. defendant in federal court, but generally cannot sue a foreign defendant there. For this purpose, a company like World Liberty is considered to have the citizenship of each of its owners. So if even one owner is a foreign citizen, the company is considered foreign.
In other words, my case could be heard in federal court only if World Liberty and all of its owners were American.
Under federal court rules, World Liberty had to file a disclosure statement at the beginning of the case, listing each of its owners and their respective citizenships. World Liberty’s disclosure statement listed only one entity—World Liberty itself—and stated that its citizenship was Florida. Its lawyers also signed a statement claiming they knew of no one else who needed to be disclosed.
World Liberty then moved to compel arbitration, seeking to move my case out of open court and into a secret arbitration proceeding.
I opposed that motion. My lawyers spent several months and hundreds of thousands of dollars on it. At a hearing in August, the court said it did not believe all of my claims should be sent to arbitration. The court ruled that some of my claims would remain in open court and others would go to arbitration, and ordered the parties to work out an agreement specifying which claims would stay in court and which would go to arbitration.
Less than a week later, World Liberty suddenly “corrected” its disclosure statement. Where it had previously listed just one member in its ownership chain, it now listed 22, with citizenships in Florida, Delaware, Puerto Rico, and the United Arab Emirates.
World Liberty now says that the federal court has no jurisdiction over my case because it has UAE citizenship, meaning that there are foreign parties on both sides of the case.
The irony is obvious. World Liberty’s “Gold Paper” claims: “World Liberty Financial is not offshore by design.” It is “an American, tax-paying company committed to bringing DeFi back to its true home: the United States.” It promises to build a “U.S.-based decentralized platform,” founded on “American ideals of freedom, privacy, and the freedom to transact.” It calls private, peer-to-peer transactions “a core American value,” and boasts: “World Liberty Financial does not shy away from America—it embraces it, positioning the country to become the global crypto capital of the future.”
When selling tokens, World Liberty was a proud American company 🇺🇸. It only “discovered” its UAE 🇦🇪 roots when it needed a way to escape U.S. federal court.
Surely World Liberty has always known who its owners are. Yet its lawyers claim they only learned that the company had UAE citizenship after filing the original disclosure statement.
As my motion says, if that is true, then either World Liberty’s lawyers failed to conduct the required due diligence, or World Liberty was not honest with its own lawyers. We asked them what happened, and World Liberty refused to answer.
Token holders have a right to know whether the projects they invest in are telling the truth to the public and to the courts. I filed this motion to hold World Liberty and its lawyers accountable because I believe they submitted a misleading disclosure statement to the court. I also want to make sure that World Liberty bears the cost of its gamesmanship, not me.
After the federal court rules on this sanctions motion, I will refile my lawsuit against World Liberty in California state court.
I will continue fighting for the transparency this community deserves.